


To Err Is Human, To Purr is Lupine

by FairyTrashMother



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Could be read as pre-slash if you wanted, Injury Recovery, Its a sprained knee though its absolutely fine, Other, Platonic Cuddling, Purring, Purring Witchers, Witchers as cats, no beta we die like renfri
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-29
Updated: 2020-06-29
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:34:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24983911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FairyTrashMother/pseuds/FairyTrashMother
Summary: To the best of our knowledge, cats (and Witchers) purr for a number of reasons, including soothing, social bonding, and speeding the healing of injuries. Jaskier learns that not only do Witchers purr, but that they do so for the same reasons.
Comments: 20
Kudos: 202





	To Err Is Human, To Purr is Lupine

**Author's Note:**

> @clownofrivia on Tumblr asked why there isn't more platonic Witcher cuddling fic and since that's a good point, and since soft and shmoopy is my only setting, here it is: platonic Witcher cuddle fic
> 
> If you want to read this as anyone being in any relationship, go for it! I just suck at writing that.

The thing about being in pain is that it’s exhausting. Also, it hurts. But more importantly, now that it was a good six hours later, it was exhausting. Training with the Witchers had felt like a good and sensible idea, but then it had devolved into horsing around, and then there had been a patch of black ice, or perhaps not black ice, merely ice that Jaskier hadn’t noticed while Lambert was trying to shove a fistfull of snow down the back of his thick winter coat, and he’d gone down hard with a massive Witcher landing on top of him and his knee had twisted. He knew it wasn’t good when it didn’t even hurt properly at first, knew that he would never walk the same again, although Vesimir insisted that he had mildly sprained it and he couldn’t feel it because he was laying in a snow heap, and he should probably get up before something important froze off. Jaskier knew better. He was tired and he ached and he’d probably never walk correctly again.

He’d made sure Lambert knew it too, that the Witcher had slain him, an innocent man, and Lambert had looked. Well guilty. It was a strange look on his face. Eskel had also looked pinched and concerned, and good, frankly, because he’d suggested bringing a mere mortal out to battle amongst gods, and also, it had been his job to ensure that he’d spread grit on the ground so nobody would slip and die like Jaskier very nearly had. 

Geralt had been barely sympathetic. He’d settled Jaskier near the fire, and yes he gave the knee a careful massage before propping it up on pillows, and yes he’d rubbed an arnica balm into Jaskier’s bruised ribs, but he’d heckled Jaskier the entire time, deeply unsympathetic to the career ruining injury. What, in the name of all that was good and grand, was a traveling bard who could not travel because he’d been maimed. He’d been felled in single combat with a preternaturally gifted warrior mage in his lofty mountain keep, and he couldn’t even travel the world to tell about it!

Vesimir had been the least sympathetic of all. He’d rolled his eyes at the clearly dying bard, given him a small glass of brandy, and told Geralt to take him up to bed. Which he had done, carrying him like a blushing bride (Geralt had said like an overtired toddler) to his room.

And now here Jaskier was, alone in a lumpy bed in a drafty tower, the wind howling it’s lonely call across the icy mountains, the meager fire in the hearth struggling in vain to warm him, while he tossed and turned, convinced that he would die alone like a sick cat in an alley. He was exhausted, but he ached. He would positively never get to sleep tonight, or possibly ever again.

It was quite a shock to him, then, when he blinked awake to the sound of his door latching shut, and then soft footsteps crossing the room to the hearth. It was still dark, so this wasn’t a wakeup call. He could just make out the silhouette of a massive man (so, no help there) bending to place another log in the hearth. So he’d been asleep for a few hours, then. Slowly the figure straightened and approached the bed. Lambert paused, meeting his sleepy, confused gaze, and then lifted the covers to-to join him?

Yes, Lambert was certainly slipping under the covers, face-to-face with Jaskier, and slowly, cautiously, and still without explaining Lambert drew Jaskier into his arms. Confusing, but certainly not unpleasant. Jaskier would never look a gift snuggle in the mouth (oh dear, he thought, perhaps I am dying, this is my brain’s last gasp, they’ll find me come morning frozen in my bed) so he simply settled his head onto Lambert’s shoulder, snuffling contentedly, and let himself drift. 

A few minutes, or perhaps an eon later, the door opened again, or at least it must have, because Eskel and Geralt were slipping into the room and pausing at the end of the bed to watch. Jaskier wished he could care (no, he didn’t), but he Lambert was very warm and smelled very good (like leather and woodsmoke and wine and man), and Jaskier was deeply disinclined to move. He may have drifted, or perhaps the others simply knew how to teleport and hadn’t told him about it yet, because the next thing he knew there were more arms around him and a broad chest at his back, and someone had squirmed between his legs and Lambert’s to rest their head on his stomach and wrap around his hips, and now he was even warmer, and his bed smelled quite a lot like man and wine, and he was very ok with inebriated snuggles. This is exceptionally comfortable, and it may, he suspects, bring him back from the brink of death. In fact, even though his knee throbs, he dares death to reach him in the center of a pile of sleepy, drunk Witcher.

Jaskier is once again on the verge of sleep when he- well he feels it more than hears it, at first. Lambert is vibrating and it isn’t his medallion, it's his chest. He’s. Purring? As Jaskier begins to rouse himself enough to make heads or tails of it and figure out what, exactly, is happening, he feels Eskel take up the purr (because what else could it even be?), and isn’t that an odd sensation, two broad chests bracketing his body as he lays half on his side, and both of them warm and purring. A moment later Geralt takes up with it, and its. Nice, actually. Quite nice. Soothing and warm, and Jaskier is hard pressed to find a time he ever felt safer than right here and now. Gently, softly, he drifts back to sleep. 

***

In the morning, he will wake alone. In the morning, they will deny it ever happened, and tell him that just because they have cat’s eyes doesn’t mean they can purr or do any of that other cat nonsense. They’re men, wolves even, and they do not cuddle and purr. In the morning, Jaskier will seek out Vesimir, who will tell him that Witchers can and do purr because the resonance of their purring speeds healing, and the physical contact helps reduce pain. In the morning, Vesimir will pull Jaskier in with a gently kneading hand on the back of his neck and hug him tight while giving a sputtery, wheezy rumble of his own. He will tell Jaskier, softly, as befits a secret, that Witchers often sprawl with each other in winter to purr and soothe some of the ache of cold on broken bones and damaged joints.

And if, the next night, Jaskier pulls them down onto the fur rug before the hearth in the main hall after dinner and strums a song that harmonizes with their rumbling, well. Jaskier certainly won’t look a gift cuddle in the mouth, and neither will his wolves.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm @fairytrashmother on Tumblr (or, that's my fandom blog), if you wanted to stop in and say "hi"


End file.
